The first openly gay senior policeman, aka the 'Cannabis Cop', here reveals that after the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes, he suffered severe depression. Now the Lib Dem is in the final straight of the race to be Mayor of London

How often in the past three months have we looked enviously across the Atlantic and asked why it is that we can't do grass-roots politics with the same healthy verve and populism that distinguishes the United States in a presidential election year? Hillary and Barack may have made 2008 a vintage primary season, but every US presidential contest has its rousing town-hall meetings, its lawn posters, its corny lapel buttons and its spectacular school-gym balloon drops.

Recent immigration has created a mass underclass of illegal workers who lack any employment rights, citizen rights or access to public services. It is estimated that the losses to the Exchequer from unpaid tax and NI contributions from people working clandestinely is as much as £3.3bn. It is for these reasons that the Liberal Democrats have proposed an earned route to citizenship for those illegal immigrants who have been in this country for 10 years or more.

The secret paranoia of former statesmen. The former Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson memorably told two journalists: "I see myself as a big fat spider in the corner of the room. Sometimes I speak when I'm asleep. You should both listen. Occasionally when we meet, I might tell you to go to the Charing Cross Road and kick a blind man standing on the corner. That blind man may tell you something, lead you somewhere."